BLACK PARIS

Credit Hours: 3 · Undergraduate Upper-Level

This course examines Black experiences in Paris, France’s capital city, in the 20th century, through an in-depth analysis of literary, cultural, and artistic productions. We will study how the African American, Caribbean and African presence in the “City of Lights” contributed to the city’s image and culture from the Jazz Age to today’s Hip-Hop era. We will pay equal attention to young American expatriates, exiled intellectuals and political activists, and to young West Indian and African intellectuals from the French colonies and examine how their fruitful “encounters on the Seine” (James Baldwin) gave birth to the Negritude movement, but also generated tensions among the African diaspora. Taught in English.